


Meant to Tell You How I Felt

by indevan



Series: Rock Band AU [17]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, Getting Together, M/M, Tutoring, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-30 02:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12644037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Kakarrot has zero interest in repeating a grade so he knows that he’ll be here with Nerd of the Year learning the difference between a covalent bond and an ionic bond if it kills him





	Meant to Tell You How I Felt

“A what?”

The teacher sighs and lifts her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose.  Kakarrot’s used to that expression.  Teachers have been exasperated with him as long as he’s been in school.

“A tutor,” she repeats. “I don’t want to frighten you, but unless your grades improve, you may have to repeat your junior year.”

 _That_ gets him to pay attention.  High school, especially since his brother’s graduated and his one other friend is _about_ to graduate, is not his idea of a good time.  He doesn’t want to be here any longer than he has to be.

“It isn’t just my class you’re failing, Kakarrot, and we want to see you succeed.” She smiles in what he thinks she thinks is a supportive way and puts her hand on top of his. “Stop by here after class tomorrow.”

She words it like a suggestion but he knows better than to think he has any sort of choice or say in the matter.  He has zero interest in repeating a grade so he knows that he’ll be here with Nerd of the Year learning the difference between a covalent bond and an ionic bond if it kills him.

The teacher dismisses him and he makes his way home.  His parents have the car and his one ride isn’t at school today so he walks the two miles home.

There’s a battered Saab parked in front of the trailer when he gets there, hot and exhausted.  Kakarrot heaves a tired sigh at the car, wishing it and its owner had been at school today to drive him home.  He lets himself in, allowing the storm door to slam shut behind him.

“Hey.” Vegeta’s typing on a laptop, papers spread out around him. “Tell Bardock and Gine they need a better hiding place for their key.”

He doesn’t even glance up as Kakarrot swings his backpack onto the floor.

“You won’t _believe_ what they’re--”

He holds a finger up to quiet him and types something incredibly fast.  Kakarrot sits next to him on the couch, careful not to disturb his papers.  He grabs the remote to turn on the TV.

“Wait--I can’t write with that on.”

It’s his house but he doesn’t say so and puts the remote down.  Instead, he goes to the kitchen to get a can of soda.  It’s getting hotter as summer approaches and the air conditioning hasn’t kicked on in the trailer yet.  That, combined with his walk home, and he feels dehydrated.

“How was hell?” he asks, still not looking up.

“You would know if you showed up every once in awhile.”

Vegeta makes a face.

“Right.  Anyway, I’m almost done.  One more paper and I’m out of here.”

It worries him, spending his senior year alone, but he doesn’t say anything.  He pops the tab on his soda and drains about half of it.

“Can I turn the TV on now, your highness?”

He raises his hand and then lowers it--permission granted.  There isn’t anything on but he leaves on some court show for background noise.

“I have to have a tutor so I don’t flunk eleventh grade,” he tells him.

He makes a face that’s one part sympathetic and two parts annoyed.

“Sucks to suck.”

No one can ever say that Vegeta lacks empathy.

“Yeah, well, it’s that or repeat junior year so.  This is where I am.” He spreads his hands and sighs.

Kakarrot rubs his forehead against Vegeta’s back only to be shoved in return.

“I’m working,” he says roughly.

He knows that the proper recourse is to do his own homework but he can’t bring himself to do it--maybe his teachers weren’t exactly off the mark.

\--

There are worse ways to spend an afternoon, Chi-Chi figures.  For example, she could be wandering around a post-apocalyptic hellscape, fighting off radiated rat-people with a field hockey stick.  The chem room is cold and even with her sweatshirt on, she’s shivering.  She doesn’t know why she agreed to this except for the extra credit she doesn’t actually need.

She was approached two days ago in the hall, on her way to her trig class, and asked if she could tutor a student who was in danger of failing.  Chi-Chi figures their grades have to be pretty spectacularly bad if they were going to have to repeat the year.  From what she was told, this student was given a deal: pass the finals, pass their classes.  She thinks it’s unfair that someone can screw around all year and still have a free pass to redemption but the exams _are_ cumulative.

She’s only passingly familiar with the student she’s supposed to tutor.  She knows he’s one of the loadie losers who smokes under the bleachers and hangs around with that frightening senior boy who everyone knows is a violent delinquent--why else was he kicked out of his fancy private school and sent _here,_ after all, where there are metal detectors and fences?

Chi-Chi sets out the folders she prepared for the tutoring session.  It isn’t that she’s some kind of model student but she isn’t a punk and teachers generally like her.  Truthfully, she doesn’t think the guy is going to show.  He won’t show and he’ll fail and Chi-Chi will get her afternoons back where she can spend time with her numerous friends and hobbies.

Which is, of course, the other reason she agreed to this.  People describe her as “pushy” and “driven,” which doesn’t leave her with many friends.  Tutoring whatshisname is honestly something to _do._

The door to the chem lab opens and a boy enters.  He’s lanky and his black hair shoots out in every direction, but he’s kind of cute.  It’s an admission she allows only mentally since 1. he’s not someone she would associate with normally and 2. he’s just the guy he’s tutoring.

“Are you Chi-Chi Mau?” he asks.

“Are you Kakarrot Son?” she asks back.

He nods and slips down into the stool across from her.  He props his chin in his hands and leans in on the smooth, black table.

“Final exams are in a month, so if we meet three days a week, we should be able to catch you up using the study guides.”

Chi-Chi picks up her color-coded folder.  She might have been taken by surprise by the teacher’s request, but that doesn’t mean she’s going in unprepared.  Kakarrot’s thick brows rise in surprise.

“You get right to it, huh?”

“Your grades are pretty abysmal,” she says. “I figured it was the best course of action.”

Kakarrot leans his face on one hand and makes a fiddly gesture at her with the other.

“I like the way you said that--abysmal,” he says, “Like you’ve got some kind a rat or something in your mouth you wanna spit out.”

If he’s trying to endear himself to her, he’s utterly failing.

“I do not!” she snaps.

“I’m not being literal--chill.”

He shoots her a goofy grin and Chi-Chi?  Well, she’s not impressed.

\--

The second day of tutoring, he says they can go to his house.

“The chem lab’s boring and the library’s where detention is.”

She doesn’t think it’s a come on.  Kakarrot’s shown no interest in her (and she has no interest in him) so Chi-Chi agrees.

“You have a car?”

She nods.

“Cool, ‘cause I don’t.”

Chi-Chi rolls her eyes but she finds herself unable to stay mad at him.  Kakarrot has this easygoing nature about him and this kind of...energy.

“Come on.”

Kakarrot doesn’t live far from the school so it’s maybe a five minute drive.  Chi-Chi’s glad he’s one of those guys who doesn’t get all macho and pissy when she drives like she’s seen guys on TV act.

He lives out in the trailer park a few streets over.  There’s a maroon Astrovan parked out front and the sight of it makes Kakarrot perk up.

“This is it.”

He sounds a bit wary, like he’s afraid she’s going to start judging him for living here.  Chi-Chi gives a nod and pulls up behind the van.  She doesn’t realize until he’s opening the storm door to unlock the front that she’s going to a boy’s house and she didn’t call her dad.  He knows she’s tutoring someone but not that she’s going to his _house_ when his parents aren’t home.

“Be decent, please!” he calls in as he opens the door. “I brought my tutor over.”

Chi-Chi steps into the house.  To her left is the kitchen, where an older girl is cooking dinner.  In front of her is a couch where two boys are slumped watching TV.  A short hallway leads to two closed doors and one that’s open.  On the wall are framed photos of Kakarrot and another boy as well as, for some reason, a framed photo of Bruce Springsteen.

“Hi,” she says, feeling suddenly shy. “I’m Chi-Chi.”

The two guys on the couch give her a cursory waves but the girl at the stove smiles big and waves her wooden spoon at her.  She recognizes one of the boys as Turles, who graduated last year.  Of course Kakarrot would know him since he hangs out with that terrifying Prince boy, who was _also_ friends with Turles.  Chi-Chi never interacted with him but she always saw him in the mornings, making a big deal about going through the metal detectors.  He’d put his hands on the back of his head and ask the security guard if he was going to frisk him.

“Nice to meet you, Chi-Chi,” the girl at the stove says. “Are you staying for dinner?”

She wasn’t planning on it but finds herself nodding for something to do.

“Sure.  Um.  If it isn’t too much trouble.”

“None at all.” She turns to Kakarrot and adds, “If you’re studying in your room, keep your door open.”

Kakarrot’s face goes a bit red as he mumbles, “Sure, ma”

At the mention of “ma,” Chi-Chi wonders where his parents are.  This girl, who’s clearly his sister, seems to have taken on a parental role.  Plus, thinking about the whereabouts of Kakarrot’s parents allows her to ignore the comment about keeping the door open.

The other guy gets up from the couch and wraps an arm around Kakarrot’s neck before pulling him to his chest.  He rubs his knuckles through his hair and grins.

“If me’n’Turles have to keep the door open, so do you.”

“Ra _ditz!_  We aren’t dating!  Chill!” Kakarrot wriggles out out of his grasp and casts her an apologetic look. “Sorry.”

She turns her hand out to let him know that it’s okay.  She knows Raditz too--vaguely.  She’s seen him at school, obviously, since it’s hard to miss him since he’s over six feet tall, nearly two feet wide, and has hair to his waist.  He graduated last year, too, but much like Turles, she doesn’t see him as one to go to college.

“Radi, stop tormenting your brother and set the table.” The girl gestures with her spoon again. “Dad’s off at five so set a spot for him, too.”

Raditz salutes her and grabs a handful of paper plates from the countertop.  Whatever she’s cooking on the stove smells heavenly.  Her father often works late hours so Chi-Chi normally cooks for them both and the thought of not cooking tonight _is_ appealing.

“C’mon.  Our room’s over here.”

Kakarrot gestures to one of the open doors.  She follows him in and drops her backpack on the floor--or what of the floor she can see.  Clothes and record jackets (records?  What year is it?) cover the carpeted floor.  The entire room smells like _boy,_ and Chi-Chi awkwardly perches on one of the unmade beds.  She figures that Kakarrot and Raditz must share this room.

“We did chemistry yesterday so we can do English today,” she says.

Kakarrot nods and plops down right on the floor, sitting straight on a pile of t-shirts.  To her surprise, he pulls the right folder out of his backpack.  Honestly, Chi-Chi figured he would have already lost them.  She gets out her own study guide and slips down onto the floor.  God, this room is a disaster zone.  She pinches a t-shirt between two fingers and tosses it to the side.

“So,” she begins. “Is it just you guys and your dad?”

Kakarrot gives her a puzzled look, cocking his head to the side and looking not unlike an inquisitive puppy.

“What do you mean?” he asks. “You literally just met my ma.”

She glances out the open door and back at him.

“That was your mother?”

“Uh.  Yeah.  Who else would it be?”

Chi-Chi frowns. “I dunno.  Your sister?”

He shakes his head. “No.  But she’ll be happy to hear that.”

Kakarrot jumps to his feet and runs to the door.  Sticking his head through the open doorway, he yells as if the trailer is far bigger than it is and he has to be heard.

“Ma!  Chi-Chi thought you were my sister!”

She buries her face in her hands in embarrassment.

\--

Kakarrot bends over the paper in front of him, filling in the blanks.  Chi-Chi is nothing if not thorough.  The study guides she made make so much more sense to him than whatever the teachers said.

“Kakarrot--Kakarrot--HEY, ASSHOLE!”

Vegeta snatches the paper off of the crate he had it balanced on and glares him.  Kakarrot lifts his head and smiles sheepishly.

“Oh, hey.  Sorry.  I thought we were still on break.”

Vegeta’s face sours.

“It’s not like we’re getting anything done,” Raditz points out. “We can barely all stop at the same time.”

He taps out a beat on his drumkit and shakes his head.

“That’s ‘cause we’re still missing something, babe,” Turles says. “We need at least a fifth member.”

Kakarrot isn’t sure when they decided to form a band, but it isn’t going very well.

“I thought you were writing a song,” Vegeta says.  He’s reading over the study guide and rolling his eyes.

“I have to study,” he says for what feels like the hundredth time, “Or else I have to repeat the grade.”

“I don’t see why it’s a big deal,” Turles says, “I had to repeat a grade and I’m fine.”

Raditz prods him in the side with his drumstick.

“You’re not the best role model, sweets.”

Turles grins cheekily at him and swoops down to capture his lips.

“Chi-Chi is really adamant on me passing,” he continues, “and she made these study guides and is nice about it.  Sorta.”

Truthfully, Chi-Chi is very pushy.  He kind of likes it, honestly.  She gets this determined look on her face that’s actually pretty cute.  She’s a great deal shorter than him but all she has to do is say “Kakarrot…” in a warning tone and he’s back on task.

Raditz comes up from air and shoots him a knowing look.

“What?”

“Do you _liiiiike_ her?” he asks and waggles his brows.

Kakarrot contemplates throwing his pencil at him.

“No.  I just don’t want...to let her down.”

And it’s true.  He likes Chi-Chi but he doesn’t see her sticking around.  He _hears_ how people write him off as a loadie loser.  Chi-Chi is smart enough to be sentenced to be his tutor so she’s clearly an overachieving honors student.  Once her task is done, she’s going to go back to her life.  Even if he did have a crush on her--which he doesn’t--it won’t matter in the end.  Chi-Chi’s smart, which means she’s _too_ smart to want to get with a fuck-up like him.

Raditz makes a kissy face at him, so he scoops a guitar pick up off of the floor of Turles’s garage and chucks it at his head.

\--

Chi-Chi looks out the window at the house as she pulls up to a stop behind the Saab.  It sits on a sprawling lawn, crouched like some kind of ominous monster.  It’s big and spacious and somehow both austere and gaudy.  In the distance, she can see the late afternoon sun reflecting off of the glass walls of a greenhouse.

“I don’t know how going to a haunted house is going to help you pass your exams.”

Kakarrot gives her a perplexed look.

“What do you mean?  This is Vegeta’s house.”

She looks at the back of the car she had followed and back towards the house.

“We always hang out here on Wednesdays,” he explains. “We can study here--don’t worry.”

“Why Wednesdays?”

“His dad works late.” Kakarrot undoes his seatbelt and Chi-Chi doesn’t like the weird implication in his words.

“You aren’t going to drink or, um, do weed, right?”

Kakarrot pauses, his hand on the door handle.

“Do weed?” He makes this goofy sort of grin and she’s tempted to--something.  She isn’t sure.

“You know!”

He cracks up and opens the car door.  He leans in and grins at her again.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “He just prefers being home when his dad’s out of the house.”

Chi-Chi doesn’t quite get it but Vegeta Prince is an enigma to her.  A short, terrifying enigma.  She undoes her own seatbelt and follows Kakarrot out of the car.  In front of them, Vegeta has also gotten out of his car and is leaning against it.

“You’ve almost graduated, haven’t you?” Chi-Chi asks to try and start some kind of conversation.

Vegeta stares down his cigarette her and she shivers despite herself.  Never mind, then.

“Let’s go,” he says, blankly intoning the words as he looks to Kakarrot.

Chi-Chi walks along behind them as they make their way up the curved path to the house.  Inside it’s worse than outside.  The house is dark and everything she passes looks expensive but in the way that it _was_ expensive and is now worthless.  She passes under a framed picture of a small, slender woman who has the same high forehead and pointed nose that Vegeta has.

“Is that your mom?”

He bristles and says nothing.  At that, she pulls a face.  He doesn’t have to be _so_ him all the time, does he?  Kakarrot leans in and whispers in her ear, nearly making her jump.

“His mom’s dead,” he explains.

And now she just feels like crap.

A door slams up ahead and Chi-Chi jumps once more.  Didn’t Kakarrot say they were alone in the house?  That liar--it _is_ haunted.  She sees a shape dart from one room to the next and she jumps a third time, this time grabbing onto the nearest object to bury her face in fear.  She feels foolish, being as scared as she is, and the feeling only intensifies when she realizes that it _isn’t_ an object at all but Kakarrot’s chest.  Her face flames as she pulls away.

“What’s your problem?” Vegeta asks harshly.  Without a care for his house, he drops ash on the wood floor.

“The door slammed,” she says back lamely. “And I saw...a figure.”

He rolls his eyes.  Turning back towards the door, he shouts.

“Tarble!  Get out here!”

The figure emerges again and it isn’t, in fact, a child ghost, but an actual child.  A boy, maybe twelve or thirteen?  He’s small, though, like Vegeta is, and they bear more than a passing resemblance to each other.

“What?” he asks, voice quiet and timid.

“Stop freaking people out.”

The boy--Tarble?--nods and ducks his head.

“I’m sorry.”

He scoots back into the room and shuts the door.

“Hey, Tarbs!” Kakarrot calls belatedly.  To her, he says, “That’s Vegeta’s little brother.”

Chi-Chi nods and takes a moment to center herself.  This isn’t a haunted house.  Tarble isn’t a ghost.  And Vegeta isn’t that scary, either.  She turns to Kakarrot and puts her hands on her hips.

“Let’s study.”

He blinks at her rapidly as if wondering about the sudden shift in her demeanor.  And then he grins.

“Yes, ma’am!”

\--

Chi-Chi tells herself that she’s only invested in finding out how Kakarrot did on the exams because it’s a testament to her own skills as a tutor.  She doesn’t want to see him.  Sure, it’s been a week since she’s seen him last when, before, she saw him nearly every day.

She checks his usual haunts in hopes to find him.  Under the bleachers stinks like smoke and something earth that she doesn’t want to stick around long enough to sniff out, but he’s not there.  The grassy little hill in the lunch area is similarly deserted.  Everyone is milling around, the whole school seeming larger since the seniors left earlier in the month.  Chi-Chi doesn’t think it should be too hard to find him.  Kakarrot’s not _terribly_ tall but he’s most definitely not short either, and he’s lanky.  And he has that _hair._

“Chi-Chi, how’d you do?” a voice asks her and she answers absently.

“Have a good summer,” another person says and she isn’t sure they’re actually saying it to _her._

Finally, she spots him in front of the chemistry classroom of all places.  He’s lingering, looking around at the rapidly emptying hallways like a lost puppy.  When his eyes land on her, he breaks into a broad grin.

_Was he looking for me, too?_

Chi-Chi pushes down those thoughts that _clearly_ make no sense and approaches him.  She opens her mouth to ask her how he did but Kakarrot reaches down, scoops her up, and spins her around.  She squeezes her eyes shut and braces herself against his chest.

Kakarrot puts her down and smiles again.

“I did it!” he says happily. “I passed!  I’m a senior!”

Her heart soars.  Her work has paid off--no, _his_ work paid off.  Kakarrot studied even when she wasn’t around, like he really cared about not failing.  Honestly, when she found that out, it was clearly at odds with the idea in her head that he’s just a loadie loser.

“I’m so happy for you,” she says, smiling. “Really.  You earned it.”

He nods, still beaming brightly.  Part of her notes that he looks cute like this.  His dark eyes are sparkling and a grin just suits his face.  Chi-Chi stares at his Killers shirt because, for some reason, looking at his face is making her feel all warm.  Her equilibrium must be off from being spun around.

“Hey!” he says, still grinning. “Vegeta’s dad is having a graduation party for him.  He’s making some kind of point.  Anyway, it’s this Saturday.  Do you wanna go?”

The warmth on her face turns into an intense heat and she looks away, biting her lip.  Is he _asking her out?_  Does he feel obligated?  To ask out the weird, intense smart girl who helped him pass?  She looks back, daring to look at his face and--there doesn’t _seem_ to be any ulterior motive.

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m busy.”

She isn’t and the way his face falls makes her feel worse than it should.

“Aw, okay.  Maybe some other time.”

Chi-Chi doubts it but she nods all the same.

\--

It’s two weeks into summer vacation when she sees Kakarrot again.  They’re both at the grocery store.  He’s with his brother and she’s with her dad.  He invites her to another party and her father overhears and is positively enthusiastic.  He always says she needs to hang out with more people, have more friends.  He doesn’t even think about what _kind_ of party a friend of Kakarrot’s would throw and says that she’ll go.  He wags his finger at Kakarrot and says to get her home by a decent hour while he and Raditz stand there, looking just as surprised as her.

And that’s how she ends up in the back of Turles’s van, scrambling at the walls as he takes turns too sharply.

She’s the only girl in the van, but she doesn’t feel weird about it, somehow.  Kakarrot’s friends look scarier than they are--even Vegeta.  She’s almost gotten used to him in the time that she spent tutoring Kakarrot.  Almost.

Even Turles isn’t that bad, either.  She sees him look at Raditz like he hangs the moon and it’s honestly very cute.

The part is at someone’s house and it’s a small, squat, stucco thing with a dead, weed-choked yard and a broken, chain-link fence surrounding the property.  The guy who answers the door grabs Turles’s hand and they do some kind of weird handshake before he lets them in.

“Who’s the girl?” he asks, flashing his eyes to Chi-Chi.

Turles shoves him as they walk by, a mirthful expression still on his face.

“Don’t worry about it, Dais.”

The guy nods, all obedient, and steps aside.  Chi-Chi walks in behind Kakarrot, keeping close to him.  The party is packed and hot and music is blaring.  Bodies are bumping and grinding in the living room to the music and the entire room smells like sweat and beer and--something else.

“Do you want something to drink?” Kakarrot asks.

She shakes her head.  She’s fairly certain her dad wouldn’t let her come if he knew that there would be drinking.  In fact, he probably thinks the party will be supervised.

“Okay.” He pauses. “Do you mind if I get something to drink?”

She isn’t sure why he’s asking her but she shakes her head to let him know it’s fine by her.  Kakarrot ducks into the writhing mass and the others are gone, too.  Chi-Chi floats from the couch to the other couch, trying not to feel as deeply uncool as she is.  This crowd isn’t full of people she knows or even has a passing acquaintance with.  At one point, a girl comes to sit next to her and smiles shyly.

“Hey,” she says. “You were in my algebra II class, right?”

Grateful for human contact, Chi-Chi smiles back.

“Yes!  I was.  I--”

The girl shoots to her feet and goes back to her group of friends.

“Ha!  I told you she went to our school.  Pay up.”

She drops her head.  It’s never occurred to her how lonely she is until this moment.  People are nice to her or ask her for homework help but she doesn’t _fit in_ anywhere.  Definitely not with this crowd.

“Hey.”

She looks up and Kakarrot’s back.  In one hand he holds a red cup and in the other is a can of soda.

“It’s hot in here.  So.  Um.  Hope you like Sprite.”

He passes her the green can and Chi-Chi takes it in both hands.  He sinks next to her and smiles again.

“Everyone else here graduated with Turles and my brother,” he explains. “We’re the babies.”

She gives a small smile as she pops the tab on her soda.  It _is_ very thoughtful of him to get it for her.  But what does it mean?

“Thanks for coming,” he says. “Even if your dad said yes for you.”

“It’s.  Fun.”

“You don’t have to lie.”

He’s smiling in that crooked, charming way of his and Chi-Chi takes a long sip of her soda.

Later--she isn’t sure how much time has passed--Kakarrot’s gone and she’s fighting her way through the writhing, jumping crowd.  Some screaming metal song is on and everyone is thrashing around.  The music makes her ears hurt and she wants to find access to the outside, even if it’s just a door to the backyard.

A hand snakes over her chest and she jerks her elbow out.  Another guy appears, putting his hands on her waist.

“Dance with us,” a drunken voice calls.

Chi-Chi yanks herself away.  A new hand closes over her elbow and pulls her away from the jeering, grabbing boys.  She looks at her apparent savior, expecting to see Kakarrot, but instead it’s Vegeta.  She tries to shake off the slight disappointment she feels.

“Dance near me,” he says and at her furrowed brow, he sighs and adds, “No one will hassle you.  For some reason, people are scared of me.”

His lips curve up in a smile that shows that he knows _exactly_ why he got his reputation.  Chi-Chi looks at him and then out at the crowd, where she can’t discern anyone in the screaming, jumping masses.  How can this many people fit in one living room?  She tries to tell herself that she’s not looking for Kakarrot.

“Did you really break someone’s nose?” she asks as a means of distraction.

He nods.

“Why?”

Vegeta smiles ruefully and says, “He insulted my mother.”

\--

Two weeks after the party, Chi-Chi has to face facts that she likes Kakarrot.  It’s a crush, of course, and nothing more.  He’s nice and sweet and cute and that’s all.  He isn’t her prince charming, the boy she’s dreamed about marrying since she was a child.  The man who would smile with her and look through the wedding binder she made in middle school.

Kakarrot with his lanky slobbishness and more than passing acquaintance with weed obviously doesn’t fit that idea but.  She has a _crush_ on him, that’s all.  Obviously, she isn’t going to spend the rest of her _life_ with him--she isn’t even sure if they’ll ever date.  She just thinks he’s cute and surprisingly sweet.

It doesn’t matter, she thinks.  She hasn’t seen him since the party and he _has_ her phone number and hasn’t called or texted.  Chi-Chi remembers how she had almost regretted giving it to him but she had needed to find a way to contact him while she was tutoring him.  There isn’t an answer so she spends most of her summer helping her father out at their family restaurant.  Until in the middle of July, she gets a message out of nowhere.

 **Kakarrot:** _i know how u feel about parties but there’s one on thurs if u wanna go w us_

Us.  It’s a group affair, not a date.  Kakarrot, like every boy, is too intimidated or scared of Type A Chi-Chi and so doesn’t like her _like that._  Still, the offer is tempting and she wants to see him again.  Maybe seeing him will break the spell and she’ll get over her crush.  She types back that she’ll go.

When the night of the party comes, she doesn’t tell her father.  Chi-Chi doesn’t know why but she doesn’t say a word and simply leaves after he’s gone to bed.  Turles’s van is already idling on the curb and she sprints across her yard to get to it.  The car is old and loud and she fears it might wake her father up even though she _knows_ that it would take a nuclear explosion to even get him to stir.

“You can sit in the front,” Kakarrot says, poking his head out from the doors in the back.

He remembers how she got worried last time over the lack of seatbelts in the back.  It makes her heart feel all weird in ways she doesn’t want to think about.  He’s weirdly thoughtful about little things.

Chi-Chi slides into the passenger seat and gives Turles a grateful smile for passing up having his boyfriend sit shotgun so she can have a seatbelt.  He gives her a wink and then slams his foot down on the gas.  Chi-Chi’s grateful for her seatbelt as they shoot off into the night.

\--

The party is at some rich girl’s house on the other side of the city, away from the more residential areas or even the nice neighborhood where Vegeta’s house is.  It’s a sprawling, huge place packed with people.  Kakarrot sees a few people from his school but it looks like everyone from everywhere is at this party.  Turles kills the engine on the van and the Violet Femmes playing on the old cassette player cuts off and he can hear the pounding bass of whatever top 40 is playing at the party.

“I think I changed my mind,” Raditz says, making a face. “I’m too old for this shit.”

“You’re eighteen, Radi.”

Kakarrot watches his brother’s face darken.  Things with him and Turles have seemed odd lately and he’s worried they’re going to break up again.  Kakarrot has never been in a relationship, but he hopes whatever one he ends up in is less erratic than theirs.

They disembark from the van and walk up into the large backyard where the party is.  Kakarrot doesn’t know the girl whose party it is--none of them do--but he supposes that it doesn’t matter.  He looks at Chi-Chi next to him and his skin prickles all over.  He’s amazed she agreed to come.  He thought since he’s passed, she’d be done with him but here she is.  She’s gone to _two_ parties with him this summer.  He doesn’t think she likes him.  Still reckons she’s too smart to do that.

He resolves that he’s going to get properly fucked up at this party to get his mind off of it.

Kakarrot isn’t sure how much time passes because drinking and time management don’t go hand in hand but it’s darker than it was and there are more people.  He’s with Chi-Chi and Vegeta and they’re inside now, somehow, standing at a big, mahogany bar.  Everything is so expensive.  The closest he gets to expensive stuff normally is at Vegeta’s house and his family started hemorrhaging money years ago.  This is all new--he can tell.

He looks around for his brother and doesn’t see him at first.  Turles is gone, too, and he hopes that it means that they’ve made up and are currently making out somewhere.

As if summoned, they materialize out of the crowd.

“Radi--please--”

“Go fuck yourself!”

Kakarrot watches Raditz storm away back outside.  Turles stops and stares at him for a moment before his arms drop and he disappears back into the party.

“That almost ruined my buzz,” Vegeta says, yawning.

Chi-Chi bites her thumb. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

She’s looking at them both, wide-eyed and unused to their theatrics.  Kakarrot can’t blame her.  No one but them knows that Turles and Raditz fight, break up, and get back together like clockwork.

“I’ll go talk to him,” he says because that’s what he always does in these situations. “Be right back.”

Kakarrot doesn’t really _want_ to leave, but he has to be a good brother.  He makes his way through to the outdoors and there are somehow _more_ people outside.  He wonders how many of them actually know whose party this is.  He hasn’t seen the girl once--or maybe he has.  They only even heard about this party through a friend of a friend of a friend of Turles.  This place isn’t his scene.  He’s used to hunkering down in people’s living rooms or using a fake ID to get into punk shows.  Even as he looks for Raditz, he can’t help but let his thoughts go back to Chi-Chi and he hopes that she’s having a good time.

Finally, he spots his brother on the edge of the lawn, but he’s not alone.  Kakarrot slows his pace and watches a very clearly drunk boy pat Raditz on the back.  He doesn’t think that he’d hook up with someone A: when he and Turles aren’t even formally broken up or B: someone that wasted but Kakarrot watches just to be sure.

“You’re so hot and cute and _big,_ and if your boyfriend doesn’t see that, then he doesn’t deserve you,” the guy slurs out.

Raditz lifts his head and Kakarrot sees him smile.

“Thanks, drunken stranger.”

The boy smacks a hand to his chest and says, “My name’s Lapis.”

Kakarrot opens his mouth to call for him but someone beats him to it.

“Radi…”

He isn’t sure when Turles got here but he’s suddenly next to him, not seeing Kakarrot or the skinny drunk boy.  His eyes are only on Raditz.  He watches his brother get up and walk towards him.  Watches Turles fold himself up into his arms and then they’re kissing and it’s--too much.

Kakarrot stumbles back towards the house.  A thought cuts into his mind about what it would be like to have something--anything--like that.

\--

“Excuse me, what are you doing?”

Chi-Chi freezes.  She told Vegeta this was a bad idea but he doesn’t listen to her.  He’s standing on the bar, cradling several bottles of top shelf liquor while reaching for another.  The question comes from a girl with curiously blue hair pulled back into a ponytail.

“Drinking,” he says with the ease of someone who’s very drunk. “I want Hennessy and then I saw this fancy shit.”

“Get off the bar,” she commands.

“What’s it to you?”

“It’s my house.”

Chi-Chi expects another snippy comment but Vegeta relents and plops down on the bar.  He offers her a bottle of something brown and expensive-looking.

“Then here you go.”

The girl takes it and gives a wry smile.

“Aren’t you going to offer some to your girlfriend?”

At the same time, he and Chi-Chi bark with laughter.  The girl absconds with the bottle and a dismissive wave of her hand.  Chi-Chi bites her lip after she leaves.

“Sorry I laughed,” she says.

“Why?” He tips the bottle of Hennessy to his mouth and shrugs. “I laughed, too.”

That’s true enough but.  Chi-Chi fiddles with the hem of her t-shirt.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

She sighs.  She isn’t scared of Vegeta anymore but he’s still pretty abrasive.  Shaking her head, she pushes on.

“I have a crush on Kakarrot.”

He stares at her for what feels like a long while.  His eyes bore into hers and she wonders if he even heard her.  Finally, he smirks and tips the bottle back to his lips.  Before he corks his mouth with it, he speaks.

“No shit.”

\--

When she first kisses him, Chi-Chi thinks it’s nice.  She hasn’t been kissed many times before--little pecks during games of spin the bottle--and Kakarrot’s lips are full and soft.  They’re tentative against hers and his mouth trembles slightly.  She initiated it because she knows that he wouldn’t and.  Fireworks.  Bells.

Kakarrot puts his arms around her and she fists his t-shirt in her hands like she’s seen people do on TV.

They’re kissing because he helped her sneak into her house after the party and texted her the next day to make sure she was okay.  Because he asked if she wanted to hang out and because of how she’d managed to wheedle out of Vegeta that Kakarrot likes her too.

Even as she kisses him, though, she thinks that this is temporary.  Kakarrot isn’t her prince charming.  He isn’t her be all, end all.  Her knight in shining armor.  Her soulmate.  He’s a boy who she helped pass eleventh grade.  A boy who turned out to be surprisingly sweet and thoughtful and is, okay, pretty cute.  Chi-Chi likes him but she’s not naive.  They’re barely seventeen.  But maybe that’s it.  They’re in high school.  Chi-Chi needs to focus less on sweeping, eternal romance and just like this in the moment.

She breaks the kiss and he looks at her, that usual cute smile on his face.

“Um.  So now that that’s out of the way.  Wanna get something to eat?”

Chi-Chi laughs and nods.

“Sure.”

Kakarrot holds her hand as they leave his room and walk out towards her car.  This won’t be forever, she thinks, but it’s pretty great right now.

**Author's Note:**

> http://vertigoats.tumblr.com


End file.
